| Issue |
EPJ Web Conf.
Volume 247, 2021
PHYSOR2020 – International Conference on Physics of Reactors: Transition to a Scalable Nuclear Future
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | 08016 | |
| Number of page(s) | 8 | |
| Section | Research Reactors and Facilities | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202124708016 | |
| Published online | 22 February 2021 | |
https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/202124708016
REACTOR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT OPTIONS TO SUSTAIN HIGH FLUX ISOTOPE REACTOR LEADERSHIP INTO THE FUTURE*
1 Oak Ridge National Laboratory NScD Research Reactors Division
2 NSED Reactor and Nuclear Systems Division 1 Bethel Valley Road, Oak Ridge, TN, 37831 U.S.A.
chandlerd@ornl.gov
* This manuscript has been authored by UT-Battelle, LLC under Contract No. DE-AC05-00OR22725 with the U.S. Department of Energy. The United States Government retains and the publisher, by accepting the article for publication, acknowledges that the United States Government retains a non-exclusive, paid-up, irrevocable, world-wide license to publish or reproduce the published form of this manuscript, or allow others to do so, for United States Government purposes. The Department of Energy will provide public access to these results of federally sponsored research in accordance with the DOE Public Access Plan (http://energy.gov/downloads/doe-public-access-plan).
Published online: 22 February 2021
The mission of the Neutron Sciences Directorate (NScD) at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is the undertaking of high-impact research into the structure and properties of materials across the spectrum of biology, chemistry, physics, materials science, and engineering. NScD operates two world-leading neutron scattering facilities: the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) and the Spallation Neutron Source. HFIR achieved full power in 1966, and over a half century later, it continues to serve a variety of national missions. HFIR provides one of the highest steady-state neutron fluxes of any research reactor in the world to support scientific missions including cold and thermal neutron scattering, isotope production, and materials irradiation research. To sustain leadership in neutron sciences into the future, ORNL is exploring areas in which HFIR can be improved to enhance its performance. Many improvement areas are being explored including upgrading the cold source and neutron scattering facilities. The improvement areas discussed herein include replacing the reactor pressure vessel, upgrading the neutron reflector, and ensuring that reactor performance is maintained or enhanced after converting from high-enriched uranium to low-enriched uranium fuel.
Key words: HFIR / LEU / neutron science / pressure vessel / reflector / research reactor
© The Authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2021
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.